It’s easy to quote a simple internet meme and use it to point to Trump’s tariffs to call him an idiot. Thanks to memes, I now know that his list was generated by internet domain, that it’s a formula based on trade balance, that they’re effectively arbitrary numbers, and that it’s all theater. Thanks to a quick glance at my Robinhood account, I can tell that his tariff talk has wiped out a trillion dollars of other people’s money overnight (and, on paper, $200 of mine).
So, yes, I have cause to be irritated at the man. So do you. Fair enough — so far as it goes.
BUT.
Yeah, I know. The last thing you wanted to do was click that “Read More” button and see what exactly it is about this you didn’t know, because at least a part of you is terrified that what he’s doing makes sense. Not to worry; it doesn’t. Nothing whatsoever about this topic makes sense, including the fear and outrage. Especially the fear part.
Let’s start with a little perspective. There’s an image at the top of this article, a picture of words organized in a table. This is the US tariff on processed kerosene, four varieties. From it, you can see that kerosene is commodity 2710, subsection 19. A little research will tell you that Commodities Code 27 Section 10 covers every imaginable variety of processed petroleum, including tar distillates, processed oil, raw crude, and so on. There are thousands of item classifications in 2710, each with its own tax rate (per gallon, per barrel, per ton…) There are hundreds of sections in Code 27, and there are 96 other chapters just like Code 27, each containing an intricate breakdown of every variety of item imaginable and quite a few that aren’t.
These are the tariffs on goods being imported into the United States as of a few weeks ago.
Printed out, in small font, in three ring binders, these take up a three foot shelf in every post office, border crossing, and customs inspection office in the country, more than ten thousand pages of fine details of what the government is owed in taxes on imports. Thank God for computers.
Remember: This is just the basic amounts. Every country we trade with has its own treaty. This means that every commodity’s tariff is modified in some manner and must be paid using a specific set of codes, forms, rules, and protocols.
Donald Trump did not invent tariffs. They are not some archaic device he’s brought back from a century ago, like the gold standard and trickle-down economics. They exist now, have done so since the nation was founded, and likely will continue to exist for as long as borders do. We tax imports in order to protect domestic production, to give our nation’s companies an unfair competitive advantage in global trade — and to scrape off a few hundred billion extra dollars in revenue every year.
So does every other country in the world.
Tell me again what your meme said?
…Right. Trump’s levying tariffs on everyone with no real rhyme or reason. They’re extra tariffs. Headlines appeared in the papers about Trump’s trade wars, about corporate panic and upcoming layoffs and recessions. Markets crashed around the world. And why is he doing this? Quite obviously, it’s theater: political, diplomatic, public showmanship that was transparently designed to provoke precisely the reaction he’s gotten.
- You’re outraged — because, of course you are. Everyone’s outraged. That’s what Trump does.
- Every country on earth is at the very least pretending to be outraged.
- I’m watching the show.
You don’t have to like Trump to appreciate what’s going on here, what’s been happening and especially what’s about to happen. (I find this convenient, because to me Donald Trump is one of the most odious humans ever to come to my attention.)
At this moment, hundreds of ambassadors plenipotentiary and trade envoys are converging on the State Department with hat in hand, begging to negotiate. Some arrive with threats, others with reciprocal tariffs and, yes, the beginnings of trade warfare. Each of the 170-odd sets of trade treaties we’ve worked out with other nations is up for review and renegotiation.
Starting early this next week — the Oval Office is probably hoping for Monday or Tuesday — the first of the new renegotiated trade treaties will appear for consideration. Every single one of them, bar none, will have been adjusted in our favor. American companies will, one by one, start increasing production for both export and domestic consumption; their competitors will, one by one, lose market share and viability. By the end of April, this is going to start to look not like the cheap stunt it truly is but instead like a genius negotiating tactic. Lord knows, someone on Fox News will call it that.
…but then there’s China and Taiwan. Europe. Canada and Mexico. The UK. Our major trading partners.
Three thousand container ships, each the size of a Manhattan skyscraper, each stuffed full of taxable commodities, anchored just outside every port in the country, just waiting to see what’s going to happen.
A line of oil tankers and supertankers stacked up from here to the Persian Gulf, all packed full of commodities that our government taxes at (checks the table at the top of the article) thirty cents per liter, depending. Every one of them afraid to offload because waiting until tomorrow could save a hundred million dollars, every one of them unable to earn money while it sits and waits.
Pipelines across the border between the US and Canada all about to depressurize, because every minute they operate means a hundred thousand dollars in taxes.
Amid all this, I want you to remember that our grocery store shelves remain stocked through a system that collapses at the tiniest jolt. Any time there’s a snow flurry in May or October, whole regions run out of toilet paper, milk, and sliced bread — and it’s not as though snow is some sort of new invention. Just imagine what those shelves are about to look like the day after tomorrow. Next week. Next month.
Or… maybe that won’t happen. Maybe The Donald is just blowing smoke, as per usual.
It’s entirely possible that, in two weeks, the ticket price on every major item in the grocery store is about to go down, that American factories will start opening up new production lines across the Rust Belt, that unemployment will drop to almost nothing as tax revenues go through the roof. That new dishwasher? Half price. That new house you’ve been dying to buy? Twenty percent less, with a tiny interest rate on your mortgage.
Possible, I said. Please note, I didn’t say likely.
Historically, whenever someone throws a monkey wrench into a mechanism as intricate, complex, and delicate as international trade, whole economies collapse overnight. Commodities brokers and Wall Street speculators plummet en masse (and largely unmourned, the parasites) from the tops of skyscrapers. Governments topple, and wars break out in wide swaths across the Third World.
Who profits?
Whenever there’s a stock market crash, fortunes are made by people with the wit and courage to buy low — and the cash available to do so. Got your tax return yet? Any money in the bank? Some savings bonds earning 1% during an era of sustained 3% inflation? That really big jar of pennies?
This is my Robinhood referral link: https://join.robinhood.com/johns-ca450756
Use it, we each get free stock as a bonus. (Yay kickbacks!)
[Legal notice: I am not an investment advisor. This is not investment advice. Act on what I’m saying at your own risk. God knows I have neither the interest nor the principal (ha!) to reimburse you if everything goes pear-shaped. Which it very well might; remember 1929.]
Now, that was the optimistic answer. The reality is, those who profit are those who always profit: The rich. People with billions just sitting around are about to dump them into the market, buying up whole companies on the cheap, and in a manner guaranteed to legally defraud the public. (That’s you.)
Arms dealers will profit, as always. (#1 arms dealer in the world? The US government.)
Congressmen have been profiting off these events for hundreds of years. They get advance notice. Two weeks ago they started liquidating en masse in order to assemble ready capitol so they can buy stocks the moment the price drop stops. (Anyone wondering about the timing of Elon Musk’s announcement, that DOGE is about to go after profiteering Congressmen? This is the reason.)
The Bottom Line:
You know that ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times”? Interesting times are here.
Don’t panic, act decisively, and stock up on toilet paper and canned goods — just in case. You’ll be fine.
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